davidpsummers

Who knew rocket science would have math!

I have a Kerbal in solar orbit that needs rescuing and I want to see if I'm ready. Have I caclulated this right? I've got a space station that is sitting there with a Rockomax Jumbo-64 tank full of fuel. With about 10 tons of other stuff (the capsule to bring him back, the rocket motors, etc.) I have a weight of 46 tons with fuel and 14 tons without. With an Isp of 320, my delta-v is.... dV=9.8 x Isp x ln (Wfuel/Wempty) = 9.8 x 320 x ln (46/14) = 3700 m/s Looking at the Delta V Map by WAC, I see I need 950 m/s to get to Kerin Intercept (which is the same, I assume, as Kerbin escape). Now I don't know the dV for the orbit the astronaut is stranded in, but it is a Kerbin crossing orbit that has a periapsis of 18.5 million km and should be easier than Duna (110 m/s). So I need under 1100 m/s to get there, and lets assume the same to get back, for a total of 2200 m/s. So that leaves 1700 for rendezvous burns. So I'm good to go, right!

I came up with a negative number (1-Rwd and Rwd-1 can't both be positive?). An example of this calculation would be great.

So I guess I burn RCS or come in faster...

Well, last time I cam in from 8 km (my rendezvous burns were nothing to brag about). The orbit would cause subjective rotation. But would it impart translational separation? Last time I had a big Rockomax Jumbo 64 tank (I was refueling my station) and it took a lot of hard thrusting, though maybe thats just because it was so big. Do use nudge it to keep it in line, but

Well, I think that may well be true. But this happens when I'm not apply thrust...

I'm doing a docking and have everything lined up. I'm slowing approach (say <10m/s), the ship points right at the target, the relative velocity indicator on the ball is also centered on the target. So I have no lateral velocity, right? But as I approach, the relative velocity indicator drifts off to one side. I keep having to expend RCS fuel to keep it centered. What is that happening?

Note, the crater are not, In my experience, that flat. Except maybe in the middle. If found the broad areas between craters to be good spots (the midlands I think they are called?)

Look like sort of the thing I original thought docking mode might do!

Thanks that helped lot. What is docking mode useful for? As far as I can tell, it just changes your controls? Also, I would like to select the dock port as the target much earlier. The station is long enough (one of these days I need to spend some tech to be albe to build sideways) that I really need to aim for the other end before the ship is big enough in the field of view to be able to select the small port at the end.

I have been playing with a space station. I've been using couplers between stages so that end will also be free to dock with the station. But when I separate, the focus always seem to go to the empty tank I'm ejecting instead of the stage with the probe/capsule?

I have a station that I've added on to the end. It has gotten kinda long and I'm finding docking real disorientating. Of course you come in at the wrong end, so you have to maneuver around and line up. The problems seems to be that I rotate the view so I can see what I'm doing and then I don't know which way the ship will go when I hit the controls. Target mode doesn't help because I have move the ship with respect to the station, but I can see how I go visually and relating that to ball doesn't work, esp. given I've moved the camara.

I would mark this as "answered", but I don't see a button for that. :-)

Thanks. That has done it. Thought I'm not sure what the one person meant by and "I beam"? I'm in career mode, I don't suppose it is something I don't have yet?

OK, so I'm making a module for my "space station". I figure I would make it an "upgrade". A single docking port at one end and a tri-port at the other (suggested someplace, have 3 docking ports for strength). After all, I might stick it on a big ship going someplace far one day. (At the moment I'm just using it as a orbiting tanker with a can to keep for astrounauts as long as I can). So at the top of my booster I put in an upside down tristack coupler. Then I put a port on each one. Then a port facing the other way on top of that, and then I want to put a tristack coupler to get back to a single stack. But the think just won't "stick". I put it here and click, but it wont' place it. Am I doing something wrong?

<blockquote> You mean I shouldn't enter Kerbin's atmosphere near-vertically on the way back from Eeloo? </blockquote> I wonder if you could build something big enough, and enter it fast enough, that it punches right down to the ground without decelerating to terminal velocity?

The big ones that are described as being designed to be recovered could reasonably make it above the atmosphere. OTOH, you have to stage the parachute when you separate them. Does that survive falling back into the atmosphere?

Thanks everyone!

Career. (one word is apparently too short to post, but this should do it :-)

Well, I have had one trapped in solar orbit for a couple years of game time. I hope he has something to keep him from going mad before I have boosters that let me rescue him!

Actually, I checked back and it will let me go the launch pad, but hitting the space bar doesn't do anything and right clicking doesn't bring up anything with an activate engine button.

So I get to geostationary orbit and do a good job (nicely circular, right over the space center, etc.) and point my dish attenna at the space center. But it of course a 1/2 day later, it will be pointed the wrong way. Now I could put a slow rotation on the craft so that it turns as it orbits. But I don't see how I could get it to turn that slow? Am I just pushing the details of the game too much?

I was following the space campaigns on the wiki and I had questions. If anyone can enlighten me, the will accounted wise and knowing... - The campaign wants to start with a solid booster with a nose cone. But without a capsule or remote module, it won't let you go to the launch pad? - The campaign wants you to recover solid boosters, but how do you acitivate the parachute after separation?

[Just had a mission to minmus go bad because Mun was in the way, so annoying. Usually I can shake and encounter if I just keep raising apoapsis, but not this time. Annoying...] So, I would recommend this order for a career mode... flyby/orbit Mun flyby/orbit Minmus Land Minmus (Working on this) Land Mun I will look at link to the campaigns.

Yeah, learning them is on my list. I'm just making progress as it is and I figure I learn a lot keeping it simple.